Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) (10 page)

He was beside himself with feelings of shock and awe over the monumentally disastrous night he had.  And as he sat there watching for the umpteenth time Meg’s silent scream for Gideon, he started to replay the events leading up to his acquisition of the girl and wondered for the first time what her real motive had been for pretending to join his side. 

What was the point of it? 

17 Breakdown

Their lives hinged on the miles she could put between them and Arkdone. 

“Niche,” Meg had been talking to him so he would focus on her voice and stay consc
ious.  “Niche, I have to pull over and take care of your chest.”

She glanced at him and saw him struggle to open his eyes before they
rolled back into his head.

She’d been driving
90mph for the past twenty minutes, but she wasn’t able to stop his bleeding.  She refused to give up trying to stave off the blood flow with her soaked cloth.  But the wound was so big and her hands so small.

She slowed
the car to a crawl at a line of tall, wild bushes growing off to the side of a flat road.  She pulled the sedan over and parked behind them in hopes they would help camouflage them in the dark.  With still trembling hands, she reached over to gently touch Niche’s shoulder.

“You’ve lost too much blood.” Meg reached around to the back seat looking for anything she could use as a compression and found a plush scarf that reeked of Michelle’s perfume.  Meg was breathing her thanks as she lumped it one handed and added it to the useless wad that had been her
bandana. 

“I can’t…breathe,” he hitched, his eyes opening wide, momentarily jolted to consciousness by the pain.

“I know.” Meg was on her knees leaning over the body of the man who’d been her protector, her keeper, her captor and her friend.  She could barely see through the fat tears welling in her exhausted eyes.  “Shhh.  Try not to talk,” Meg cooed feeling useless.

“I don’t have much time, Meg,” he whispered between bloody lips.  “I have to tell you
—”

“Niche, please!  Let me get you to a hospital,” she pleaded terrified at the flickering heartbeat she felt beneath her hands. 

He struggled through a tight grimace that arched his back, spasms of his organs fighting not to shut down.

Meg’s dark hair spilled
from the knot at the back of her head, draping them in a silky curtain of lily scented curls. 

For a moment,
Niche thought he was already dead, and she his angel to take him away from this dark world.  He pulled himself back from her light and forced himself to speak through the soul-piercing pain.

“We were broken, and you cared enough to fix us.”

“Niche, no!”

“We were shattered pieces of a man, but you saw us as whole. When there was only lost time and darkness before you, your light,” his voice hitched and the crackle of a punctured lung could be heard even by Meg’s untrained ears, “it brought us back to life.”

“Please don’t leave me!” Meg screamed, her voice hoarse with emotion.  Salty tears streamed down her face.

“I’m sorry.  I can’t stay—would do anything to stay beside you.  I love you.”

His last whispered words hung like a noose around Meg’s neck.  She watched him gasp once more then all the air emptied from his shredded lungs. 

Meg fell back into her seat and held her throbbing head in her hands.  She wanted to curl up against Niche’s still-warm body and will him back to life, but she knew nothing could bring him back. 

Besides, she had another little soul she was responsible for. 

Coughing through her emotion, and using the edge of her shirt to swipe her face dry, Meg turned around in her driver’s seat and reached back to check the little boy.  Carefully, she pulled the sheet up and off where she knew his face to be and looked past his grimy skin and pungent smell to see the angelic child laying still on the floorboard, right where Meg left him.  She reached
out her bloodstained hand to gently shake his shoulder, hoping to wake him enough to tell him he was safe from harm now. 

“Come on, little one.  Wake up.  I’m Meg Winter.  I am so thankful I got you out of that horrible place.”  She swiped absently at the tears that kept falling, despite her best efforts. 

The child lay unmoving. 

Meg frowned.

Instinctively, she reached up to feel for a pulse in his throat and yanked her hand back.  His skin was too cool to the touch.  She forced herself to touch him again.

Stillness. 

No breathing.

No pulse.

Death had come and swept the child right out from her arms during their flight from the asylum and was now laughing at its irony through thin, blackened lips.

It was all Meg could do
to not run screaming down the highway, insane with grief over the senseless loss of life all around her.

Staring at the little boy, she found herself holding her breath empathetically.  The vision of his deathly silent expression blurred behind the fresh tears clam
bering down her pale cheeks, splattering like raindrops on her outstretched arm. 

Meg’s heart shattered. 

She felt it explode with agony right in the center of her too-tight chest. 

“
Nooo!”
she screamed into the night, filling every plush corner of the stolen car with pins and needles of abandoned rage.

She screamed into the face of death until her throat was raw. 

Her clothing tear-drenched, alone in a car with two soulless bodies, Meg curled like a whipped child against the driver’s side door and lost consciousness.

18 Objects in the Mirror

Quiet. 

She wants me to hold still and be quiet. 

She’s afraid she’ll be caught.

The motion stops and a red glow darts across her worried features.  She turns and sees me peeking from under the white sheet.

She smiles nervously and puts her finger to her lips. 

The baby is lying against my left thigh.  He hasn’t stirred, but he doesn’t look
as if he feels very well by the grumpy expression on his squished up face.

The other little boy is watching me with big blue eyes.  He’s very scared, but so am I.

I look up and out the window.  I see lights flashing one after the other with dark spaces between them.  I can feel the bumps under my bottom as the car zooms down the road, but still I stay quiet.

A long time passes, and I curl into the smallest ball I can so as not to bother the other children and fall asleep.

When I wake, I see a dark-haired woman looking down at me with kindness in her soft brown eyes.  She’s holding something in her hand that smells so good my mouth gets wet.  It’s a white ball of sweet bread.  It tastes so good, but when I hold out my hand for more, she passes me a yellow fruit peeled and ready to eat, I take a bite and enjoy the heavy feeling my tummy gets after I eat it all. 

My eyes want to close as the lady hummed and fed the baby a bottle.   The little boy smells like the same fruit I just ate, and he has white powder around his lips.  He must have liked the soft, sweet bread too.   I smile as I drift to sleep thinking how different this was than the tiled room with straps on the bed. 

Maybe this lady will be nice to us.  Maybe she’ll give us more white sugar bread. 

Time passes. Weeks, months, years of safety and happiness helps me almost forget the needles, white lab coats and pain. Almost.

I wake and see the lady smiling down at me.  She’s rubbing my back and telling me all about a fun game we’re going to play today.  It’s a game called, “Guess What I’m Thinking.”  I call her “Mommy” and ask her if we can play out by the pond afterward.  She pretends to think about it before tickling my tummy saying, “Yes, little fish!” 

My little brother just started to talk three nights ago when the storm came with fat rai
ndrops that blew into the windowpanes sideways.  He was scared and Mom helped him feel better.  The rain filled our pond and shook the worms from the mushy ground.

My baby brother isn’t just walking, he’s running now!  He chases the chickens around the yard.

We swim and play in the pond, watching the cattle come to get big sloppy drinks and stare with wrinkled noses at their fat spotted tongues.

I’m older now and holding a fragile baby pup in my hands.  He can’t lift his head, he’s so weak and his eyes are barely open.  Mom is handing me a medicine dropper full of goat’s milk and sugar.  I hold him close to me hoping my warmth would revive him, and the sound of my beating heart would remind his of what it was supposed to sound like.

“Don’t set him down, Meg. He needs to feel your warmth, your love. Keep putting drops of milk on his lips and see if he’ll take any of it in. When you’re tired, let me know and I’ll take over.  Are you up for this, honey? Do you understand that even after all your effort, all your love, he may still die?”

I looked down at the tiny ball of fur in my arms. He was so little he could fit into the palm of my hand. How amazing he was. This beautiful gift. I loved him immediately and unconditionally. “I understand, Mom. I’ll take care of him.  Every minute with him is,” my voice caught in my throat, “precious.”

The pup in my hands morphed into a dead little boy.  His lips were porcelain blue as though the blood had just stopped flowing minutes before, but I was too late.  I was supposed to tell Mom if I got tired of trying to feed him.  I must have fallen asleep, and now the boy is dead.

Time raced by.  A deep voice asked from the shadows, “It’s a little late for a stroll, isn’t it?” At the sound, I whipped around, tense and ready for battle. 

“Whoa, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a hint of a smile as he stepped into the light. 

Creed.

Creed’s dark-blue eyes watched my every move.  I could feel his thoughts wrap around me like a protective white blanket. 

“When the fighting is over,” his warm breath tickled the tiny hairs on my neck. “I want to take care of you.  I want to protect you and stand by your side always.  I love you, Meg.  I love your family, too.  Would you,” he stopped and cleared the emotion from his throat, “would you do me the honor of allowing me to give you this promise ring?”

Yes.

I belong to Creed.  I love him. 

And my family—they mean the world to me.

Meg’s eyes fluttered open and she squinted into the light.

I know who I am,
she whispered in her mind.

The thick, coppery scent of blood slapped her half-moment of joy square in the jaw and she was back to the anguish she felt over the loss of her friend.   She frowned deeply thinking back to the night before and the tragic events that led her to watch the sun rise over Niche’s lifeless body. 

Careful not to move too quickly, Meg turned to look back at the little boy who had died during their escape.  He almost looked peaceful, as though he saw something beautiful at his last breath. 

Meg took a moment to say a prayer over each of them before she had to force herself to soldier on.  She yanked open the glove compartment, trying not to wince at Niche’s bo
dy and was relieved to find a Swiss Army knife, a pack of matches and an old wallet full of useless credit cards and seventeen dollars in cash.  She took the cash, the knife and the matches and shoved them into her front pocket. 

She hadn’t thought it through—what she was going to do. 
She only knew she’d have to leave the car and their bodies behind the thicket on the side of the road.  She couldn’t stand the thought of being surrounded by death a second longer, so it never even occurred to her to take the car and drive.  She was acting on pure instinct now, and her instinct told her to get moving.  She opened her car door, and stepped into the morning light.  

19  Escape from Cairo

Evan pushed the garage door opener and waited for the familiar rumble of the motor and squeak of springs.  Instead, the three-hundred pound wooden door stayed put.

“Damn it!” Creed hissed.

Evan’s sharp eyes were already assessing the problem.  “The RPG knocked it off its tracks.  We’re lucky that’s all it did.”

“We have no time.”

The boys exchanged glances before they yanked their doors wide open. 

“I can do this,” Creed frowned at Evan.

“Not like I can,” Evan lifted his chin, slipped the thumb on his right hand over the small rough cogs at the business end of the lighter and held the flame out to his right.   The yellow light danced hungrily, eating the oxygen not already depleted by the noxious exhaust fumes wafting from the idling sedan.

“What do you need me to do?” Creed asked.

“Get back in the car.”  Evan’s eyes were locked onto the flame, his left hand working anxiously at his side.

The moment he heard the car door shut, he reached out to the flame and seemed to pour the fire into his scarred hand.  A smooth, orange ball hovered just above his palm for a moment before he hauled back and threw it at the wooden door.  It didn’t just catch the wood on fire, it exploded on impact.  A still-burning hole the size of the car was all that remained.  With barely a glance, Evan turned to open his car door and, as an afterthought, reached out behind him.  The remaining flames leaped from the wood and wove directly into his hand.

Creed waited until Evan had slammed his door closed before he revved the engine and peeled out of the garage through a cloud of blackened smoke that still hung like an abusive lover in the space that had been their home. 

“Later, when we have time,” Creed yanked the wheel to the left, intentionally heading away from the designated meeting spot, “remind me to tell you how
freakin’ awesome your gift is.”

“I
gotta do this while we’re still within range,” Evan said, yanking the cell phone from his pocket and swiped his finger across the screen, waking it. 

“How many do you think survived the RPG?”  Creed asked.

“Two, maybe three C4s.  We’re about to find out.” He typed a six digit combination into the digital keypad.  “In three, two, one, detonate!”

A massive explosion rocked the hilltop sending what was left of the house sky high until all that was left was burning debris and ash plumes.

“I think we’re being tailed.”  Creed clenched and unclenched his jaw, the muscles there working angrily as his eyes darted between the two-lane road and the rearview mirror. 

“Well, we knew that would happen.”  Evan glanced behind them.  “Looks like it’s just one car.  Wait, no—two.  I see two black SUVs.”

“Yeah, I see them,” Creed growled, his eyes naturally sharper than Evan’s at night.

“Can you tell how many are in each?”

“Looks like at least four in the first vehicle,” Creed continued glancing back and forth between the road and mirror.   “I can only see a couple in the second, but they keep swerving behind the first, so it’s hard to tell.”

Evan was leaning out his passenger window, his longish hair whipping violently in the wind.  “We’ve got to lose them.”  Exhaustion was getting to him again.  The lack of sleep was something even a metahuman could only tolerate for so long. 

“You okay?” Creed glanced over at Evan who had turned in his seat so he could reach out with his left hand.

“I will be.  Slow down.” Evan called over the roar of the wind gushing in thr
ough his open window.

“What?”

“Slow the car down.  Let them catch up to us.”

“Are you kidding?” Creed frowned.

“No.” Evan’s hazel eyes were framed with red from fatigue and even to Creed, the kid looked ten years older than fourteen.

“The sooner we get this fight over with, the sooner we can get to the billboard and meet up with the rest of the family.  We need to get those three medical attention,” he nodded to the back seat.  “Besides I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty damn tired of this run-and-hide shit!”

“You have a plan?”

“Yeah, attack!” He flicked the lighter on in his right hand and glanced into the back
seat to see Kylie slumped against the door.  Her blond hair hung in straight locks across her pale face.   His heart squeezed in his chest at the mix of emotions he felt for the girl whose role in all of this was more than a little unclear.  He hoped his emergency cauterizing technique bought her some time, but cringed at the thought that she may already be dead.

Inside his gut he felt a wave of anger build.  He felt anger at the mindless minions stretching the barrels of their rifles out of their lowered windows aiming to shoot at his head or their tires or both.  Anger at the loss of his ability to feel through the scars on his hand
, anger at life for not giving him time to learn how to control and use his gifts but most of all Evan felt furious at himself for having believed his gift was superior based on half-baked precognition skills.  

An ear piercing spray of gunfire shook him from his angry reverie.

He called the flame in to his left hand, slipped the lighter back into his pocket and reached for the Glock with his right. 

“No more,” he growled.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Creed grinned at the look of sheer righteous anger he saw on Evan’s face.  He turned his attention back to the road and concentrated on giving Evan as clear a shot as possible by swerving into oncoming traffic.  One hand on the wheel, he reached for his sidearm, flicked the safety off and laid it on his lap, ready for whatever was about to happen.

With
a flick of his wrist, Evan threw a projectile stream of molten lava to the SUV’s front tire.  His right hand held remarkably steady aimed directly at the driver’s forehead. 

The stench of burning rubber filled his nostrils, but he didn’t flinch.

The screech of metal bullets puncturing the trunk of the sedan rang in his ears, but he didn’t waver.

The coppery taste of his blood enveloped his tongue, but he didn’t hesitate.

All he saw was the mindless drone of a metahuman sneering from behind the wheel of the SUV.  With cold calculation, Evan exhaled and pulled the trigger.

Instantly, the driver’s head flew back, his meaty hands tossed up like rag doll’s into the night air.  On its own, the SUV pulled hard right, careened through a railing and sprung airborne. It spun like a football in the black night sky before it landed and slid metal against palm-laden
dune.  It came to rest in a heap, like a can crushed against a brick wall, but Evan wasn’t watching the crash.  He was watching the second SUV as it lunged to speed up beside their shot up sedan. 

At that angle, Evan knew he couldn’t shoot, flame or bullet, without risking their safety.

Creed was thinking the same thing.  “Grab the steering wheel!” he hollered to Evan.

Immediately, Evan
fisted his left hand to extinguish the flame, spun in his seat and grabbed the wheel Creed had just relinquished.

The
Beretta was off Creed’s lap and firing faster than a human eye could have followed.

Pop, pop, pop!

Three shots, three kills. 

“Damn, you’re good with a gun,” Evan exhaled as he watched the driver-less truck plow into a tall palm and burst into flames.

Creed took the wheel back from Evan and both boys allowed themselves a moment to just breathe.

“Did that really just happen?” Cole’s groggy voice broke the dead pause. 

“We’re getting the hell out of Cairo,” Creed said in response and pulled the vehicle off the two-lane highway in search of the fastest route to the billboard.

Evan crawled carefully into the back seat.  He first checked his brother, Alik. 

“How’s Al?” Creed asked, worry clearly framing his voice.

“The longer that oily poison stays on his skin, the more damage it
’s doing.  He’s in bad shape, but at least he’s still breathing.”

“We’re getting you help, Al,” Creed called over his shoulder at his half
-brother.  “Just focus on breathing and we’ll get you to the family asap.”

Evan wanted to put a reassuring hand on his brother, but he didn’t know where he could touch him without causing more pain.

Evan moved on to check Cole.  “Cole, buddy.  You okay?” Evan asked, gently shaking his shoulder.

“
Ow, Maze! Get off me!”  Cole waved at Evan weakly before his head lolled to the side.

Evan smirked
despite himself.  “Cole’s drifting in and out of consciousness, muttering in his delirium.  I think he’ll be okay.”

“Good.  That smartass has really started to grow on me.”
Creed shook his head remembering their rivalry over Meg.   “How’s the girl?”

Evan hesitated.   He was almost afraid to know.  Images of her smiling face flashed in his mind and he forced himself to reach out and search for a pulse in her throat. 
Though his right hand was steady, inside he was a raging mess of emotions.  Her ghostly, pastel coloring seemed to make her glow behind the curtain of her golden hair. 

Time ticked by as his skilled fingers searched.  Worry lines etched deeper into
his brow with each passing moment.

“Kylie!” he heard
his voice crack with emotion.  Exhaustion and fear welled up in the form of tears in his stinging, hazel eyes.  He had to slip his left knee between her and Cole to brace himself when he moved to try again.  He shook her shoulder gently and called to her, “Hey Kylie!  Come on!  Wake up!”

Nothing.

He moved his hand to her face and carefully smoothed her hair aside.  “Kylie, I’m sorry, but I have to.”  He flicked her on her cheekbone. Hard.

“What are you doing to her?” Creed asked, taken aback at the sharp smack he heard.

“I can’t find a pulse so either she’s died or it’s too weak to feel in a moving vehicle.  I’m doing what I can to check for consciousness by performing a ‘face flick’ in hopes of eliciting a corneal reflex.”

“English!”

“I flicked her in the face to try to wake her up!”

“Why don’t you just do CPR or something on her?”

“I can’t effectively perform CPR on a person in a seated position and there’s no room to stretch her out.”

“I could stop the car—”

“No.  We can’t risk stopping.  Let me try once more.” Evan growled through his emotions as he tried again, watching closely for a twitch response around her eye.

Flick

This time he saw one.  “Oh, thank God,” he took a shaky breath.  “She’s alive, but only barely.”

“Is she still losing blood?” 

“No.  It was quick and crude, but I managed to cauterize her wounds.  She’ll need surgery to remove the bullets and fix tissue and possibly organ damage, but it was the best I could do to buy her time.”

“Are we going to discuss the fact that she worked for Williams and probably was the cause of everything bad that happened tonight?”

“No.”

Creed raised his brows at the sullen and exhausted kid climbing back into the passenger seat, but said nothing.

Evan leaned back against the headrest and flung his arm over his aching head.  Miles slipped like black laces through the metal holes of a military boot.

Creed was lost in his thoughts when he heard Evan clear his throat.  “Just so we’re clear, I’ll take her down myself if I even suspect she’s still working for the enemy.”

“Copy that,” Creed nodded at the kid who’d earned the soldier’s respect that night.